1. Field of Invention
This invention relates generally to toy vehicles, and more particularly to a free-wheeling toy vehicle which the player can steer from the exterior thereof as he propels the vehicle along a road surface.
The conventional full scale pick-up truck is a light truck having an open body with low sides and a tailboard. Such trucks are highly useful, all purpose cargo carriers. Thus, on a farm a pick-up truck may be used to transport animals and a variety of objects, for an open truck of this type can be readily loaded and unloaded.
Toy vehicles having the same appearance as a pick-up truck are popular with young children; for in play, the truck may be loaded with tiny objects and moved to a destination and unloaded in a manner comparable to a real truck operation. The most successful toys are those which permit a child to emulate some adult activity which he has observed. It is for this reason that play houses are ever popular, for the child can furnish and people the house, and pretend to assume an adult role in this regard.
Free-wheeling toy vehicles which look like real pick-up trucks are known, such vehicles having no motor and being propelled on the floor or any other road surface by the child. The reason these vehicles fall short of a child's expectation is that they cannot be steered realistically in the manner of a genuine truck, and the child is therefore unable to propel the truck along a meandering and hence a more interesting path toward his play destination.
2. Prior Art
Toy vehicles are known in the art which incorporate various forms of relatively complex steering mechanisms and are therefore costly to manufacture. Thus the patent to De Filippis, U.S. Pat. No. 1,357,491 provides a pantograph steering mechanism in conjunction with friction wheels to engage the front wheels. Along similar lines is the steering mechanism shown in the patent to Brown, U.S. Pat. No. 3,131,508.
Also of background interest are the patents to Roberts et al., U.S. Pat. No. 3,780,470; Ernst, U.S. Pat. No. 2,603,913 and Strongin, U.S. Pat. No. 3,717,952.